Too Much to Hold
by shooting-stetsons
Summary: Set after Season TWORS, the Doctor finds a new companion in Edwardian London. Previously titled "A Series of Firsts"
1. Chapter 1

"_My dearest Watson," breathed Holmes in the half-darkness of our rooms, the fading sunlight setting his sharp eyes ablaze with a fire I had never before seen, not even in the presence of his greatest mystery. "If we are never to clap eyes on one another past this night, then you must know that I love you, more dearly and more ardently than any puzzle or game ever presented to me. No matter the pain, no matter the humiliation before us, I will never regret a moment of my adventurous life with you."_

_Despite myself, I felt a lump rise in my throat and tears sting my eyes. Was this our final adventure? Would I ever again see those keen eyes, that elegant brow, those sharp cheekbones? Would I ever again hold this glorious man in my arms? I knew not what else to do but to clasp his hand in my own, nodding fervently to his every word, just as though he were walking me through a new case, lost for words for the first in a long while._

_Together, we waited for the police to arrive. Lestrade, pale and shaken by the discovery of my true relationship with Holmes, seemed most reluctant to clap the irons around my wrists, while Inspector Jones was almost giddy to have Holmes in chains. My regal friend, reduced to the disgrace of a sodomite, stumbled slightly but did not lower his head. He held my gaze for as long as was possible, before we were raised up into separate police cabs and carried to our fates._

_Even as Holmes' cab took him in another direction from me entirely I pressed my nose to the window, keeping our Baker Street lodgings in sight for as long as possible. Mrs. Hudson, our dear landlady, stood weeping on the stoop, waving her kerchief after Holmes, for whom she had always had a peculiar attachment. Perhaps that was why she had sheltered our secret for so many long years._

_We would return from this, I vowed silently to the bravest and wisest man I had ever known, praying that my thoughts could somehow transcend space and time and find their way to my dearest Holmes. We would serve our time and find one another again; the hand of Fate would-_

"Margaret! What on earth are you doing up there? Get downstairs to the parlour this instant!"

Cheeks aflame and very nearly shaking out of her skin with surprise at being interrupted, Margaret's fountain pen went flying halfway across the room. She ignored the writing instrument for the time being, and instead settled for gathering together her papers with a hair ribbon and stowing them in the loose floorboard under her bed, breathing heavily all the while as she struggled against the confines of her corset. Once her stories were safely hidden away she stood, straightening her skirts, washed the ink from her hands in the basin by the window, and carefully trotted downstairs, dearly hoping her mother wouldn't notice she wasn't wearing shoes or stockings.

"Yes, mother?" she asked politely as she entered, then noticed young Jonathan Thomas nearly leaping to his feet from the settee and bowing with a flourish, pulling off his hat. Feeling disappointment pooling in her gut she curtseyed as her mother wrapped an arm around her.

"Darling," purred her mother, "you remember John Thomas?"

Margaret nodded, blushing and stifling a giggle. Her mother's fingers dug painfully into her shoulder and she composed herself.

Overcoming his embarrassment, John stepped forward and took her hand, bowing to kiss it. "Miss Moss."

She curtseyed again, fighting a sigh. "Mister Thomas." Her skirts rose a bit too high, exposing one toe, and she quickly covered it up before her mother saw.

"Mister Thomas was hoping to take your for a walk through Hyde Park, darling," explained her mother tersely.

Of course he was. John Thomas had been ruthlessly pursuing her since she was fourteen and he eighteen. He'd writ her many pretty - though thoroughly nonsensical - verses over the past three years, and they'd walked probably several hundred collective miles besides. He was stiff and boring and had absolutely no sense of adventure, nor any appreciation for Sherlock Holmes.

Margaret could not abide a moment of his company, and yet she was forced into it at least once a week. Therefore she excused herself to fetch her parasol, hat, and shoes, sighing all the way up to her room. She was already bored, and she'd only spent a few minutes in the insufferable boy's company! At least he was more tolerable than some of the middle-aged men who used to come to call on her father and made very pointed observations about what a wonderful wife she could be to them.

At least Thomas was near her own age.

Despite everything her mother had ever taught her about proper etiquette, Margaret found her mind wandering as she and Thomas ambled toward the park - forced to go at a sluggish pace because if they went any faster Margaret's corset would probably choke her. She looked skyward, watching the clouds drift lazily across their blue backdrop, and smiled at a sudden fanciful notion.

"What is it, my flower?" asked Thomas, noticing her amusement. Instantly she sobered, shaking her head, but he gave her hand settled in the crook of his elbow a squeeze. "No, tell me. I'd like to know the thoughts that make you smile so."

He smiled, meaning every word, and Margaret felt herself soften a bit toward him. He certainly did fancy her, didn't he? "Well," she began thoughtfully, "I was merely wondering what it would be like, if one attached wings to bicycles and made them fly."

As expected, Thomas jerked to a halt, mouth agape with shock. "Why would anyone want to do something so dangerous?" he asked nervously, eyes darting as though to make sure no one had heard her. She sighed.

"Haven't you ever dreamed of flight, John? Or...or of anything exciting at all?"

Her companion blinked, then smiled indulgently. "I sometimes entertain the notion that I may take over the bank from my father, instead of my brother!" he told her with the air of a great secret.

Margaret sighed subtly. "That sounds very exciting, John," she replied, to appease him.

They continued on their way, though in a more subdued mood on her end and a more fanciful one on his. As they drew closer to the park, she thought she heard some strange noises, like a bang, or a great wheezing coming from the holes that led to the sewers. She was very careful to keep her hand from tightening around Thomas' elbow, or alerting him in any way of her trepidation, until she thought she saw something moving in the gutter for only a moment.

"Did you see something down there, John?" she asked, ashamed for the gasp in her voice.

Thomas dutifully looked where she indicated with the handle of her parasol. "No, I don't see anything, my dear. It must be a trick of the light."

She nodded, uncertain. "Right."

Just outside the gates to the park, Margaret was feeling jumpy and irritable, still in the belief that there had been something in the gutter. Then, right beneath the kerb of the street, "There!" she cried out, jerking her hand free from Thomas' elbow to point down into the gutter. "See? See how it resembles a great arm, or something oceanic, like a tentacle!"

"Miss Moss, people are staring, please lower your voice!" hissed Thomas, yanking her hand back into the crook of his arm. "There is _nothing_ in that gutter, I promise you!"

She took a deep breath - or as deep as was possible - and shook her head, fighting her desire to kick and shout that she had _seen it_. But that would hardly be acceptable, so she held her tongue and followed Thomas into the park no matter how loathe she was to step over the gutter onto the kerb. Thomas had brought a blanket with him, and despite her difficulty getting up and down they hunkered down onto it to sunbathe. Under her parasol. Would wonders never cease?

They'd been sat there under her parasol for a good ten minutes before the screams started. They were far off and faint, but recognizable at least. Margaret brushed a few strands of dark hair from her eyes, peered in the direction of the shouts, and could have sworn she saw...

"A tentacle?"

Thomas looked at her as though she were mad, then spotted something over her shoulder and let out a shout of horror.

Spinning as best she could in place, Margaret gasped at the sight of hundreds of gray-blue tentacles rising not only from the duck pond, but from the sewers and, off in the distance, the Thames itself. People were being snatched from the ground by the enormous undulating limbs, pulled under the water and vanishing into the murky depths.

"We need to get away from the water," she said quickly, reaching up so Thomas could pull her to her feet. They abandoned the blanket and ran, clutching one another until it proved that Margaret was slowing them down with her many skirts, corset, and uncomfortable shoes. Then Thomas let go and bolted for his own safety, leaving Margaret.

She couldn't quite blame him. It wasn't as though he had had the imagination to deal with something like this.

As she ran through the street, trying to shoulder past the panicked masses without knocking anyone over, Margaret thought she could hear the strange wheezing noise coming from the sewers again, but was unable to distinguish it from the squelching of tentacles as they wrapped around innocent men and women and dragged them down into the water. Her breath came in short gasps, her face flushed with fear and exertion, and she was almost certain that she came close to being snatched many a time.

In the pandemonium, it took over an hour to find her way home, nearly dragging herself over the threshold.

Within two hours more, London was a disaster zone.


	2. Chapter 2

_Diary - Day 1,_

_Today, London was lost to a most unusual adversary. I know not how, when, or why this creature has chosen our brave city for its horrible misdeeds, nor if we are truly alone in this disaster. Perhaps the great empire of New York has been lost as well; we've no way of knowing now. The beast with the tentacles began taking people - innocent people - off of the streets and down into the sewers, for what purpose I do not know. It moves like a blind man without a cane, knocking over any impudent building or structure in its path. Half of the city has been destroyed. I do believe I am repeating myself, but the true horror has not quite sunk its teeth into me. John Thomas abandoned me to save his own skin. I saw my neighbor's mother taken down into the deep, possibly to be devoured. Nowhere is safe._

_Margaret_

_Diary - Day 2_

_It appears that our beastly guest does have a plan for us after all. The stolen citizens were found on the surface today, clothes gone, covered in a viscous, unearthly substance. They could not recognize their loved ones. They wandered the streets in a daze, staring out through dead eyes, until the chiming in of the noon hour on Big Ben. They began to scream in an unfathomable agony before falling down dead. The substance on their skin began spreading out around their bodies onto the street and onto buildings, and then the monster reached out his deadly embrace for more victims._

_I've not left the house since yesterday. I believe Mother is going mad with her fear, forcing the servant girls to board up the windows and shove cloth into any exposed crack. For hours yesterday she cling to my side and whimpered, until I finally had to wrench myself free._

_I don't know how long our walls will stop this monster, but with my father long dead and mother beyond reason, it is my duty to protect my home._

_Margaret_

_Diary - Day 3_

_This morning my mother and I sat in the parlour in our dressing gowns and made toast in the fireplace. I felt like a child again, and never have my mother and I been so intimate together. Whenever she began to despair over our fate - for more victims came up to the surface and spread that horrible slime to cover nearly half of the city - I made a joke, or called up some long-forgotten memory from my childhood to make her smile again._

_We had not been so happy in one another's company in years. She gaily declared, "If we survive, Margaret, we shall eat an entire cake all to ourselves."_

_I teasingly replied, "Will you buy me a typewriter too?"_

_The laughter vanished from my mother's eyes to be replaced by her usual cold askance gaze. "Oh, darling, why would you want one of those ghastly machines?" she laughed. At least I tried._

_This afternoon I asked Elsie to trade me one of her maid's frocks for any number of my dresses. To not wear stockings, hoop-skirts, or a horrid corset was the first real light to shine on this situation. I then bade the girl take me out to my father's old cottage in the back of the house where he kept his firearms from the war. He had taught me to use his sidearm when he fell ill and mother's lessons were crushing me under their lace-covered thumb._

_The slime had spread and grown to reach our back garden, nearly reaching the arms house. Not knowing how quickly it would spread, Elsie and I made quick work of gathering what few rifles and bullets we could carry back to the house. However, on our way back up, one of the tentacles rose out of the pond and dragged Elsie down, kicking and screaming all the way. Never have I felt such a profound sadness than for the poor girl of whom I had always been fond._

_By morning, she will be one of the drones. I must eradicate her from my thoughts if I am to remain sane._

_Margaret_

_Diary - Day 4_

_The secretions of the monster have begun to consume the back of the house. The bellies of the dead have swollen and burst to hatch more. Some of the female victims were still alive, and birthed the hatchlings like human children. Have not seen my mother for hours. I fear I may die if I stay here. I intend to wrap my diaries and stories in oilskin, and hope that they survive for humanity to find another day._

_If you are reading this, I wish you the grace of God._

_All my love,_

_Margaret Moss_

Closing her diary with a snap, Margaret wiped her eyes and knelt to her secret place under the bed, pulling out her papers and a sheet of oilskin to wrap them in. She didn't know if the protective wrapping would withstand the alien mucus, but she was determined to try. First the oilskin, then her sheets, all stowed away on a high shelf to escape the strange substance that had begun consuming her city. She gathered up her father's pistol, a pouch full of bullets, and a cloth sack for what little food she could carry, and left her home for what she imagined to be the last time.

The otherworldly mucus had spread throughout most of the city streets by now, but there were still a few side-streets that remained unclaimed, and fear of being consumed drove Margaret through them. Even there, she saw a few victims abandoned to maggots among the rubbish bins. Too much horror had passed under her eyes in the past four days for her to shed a tear for them, though she dearly wished to.

Were the tentacles waving in a more threatening and less willow-in-the-wind-type manner, Margaret probably would have continued walking out into the countryside and never once noticed the blue box standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square, splashed liberally with the clear, thick, slime. It was something she had never seen before, large and yet small at the same time, with the words "Police Public Call Box" printed on top. Though many people did have telephones, she had never seen one in a box before. Where was its power source?

It was some sort of ethereal blessing that kept her curious in the face of such great fear, for Margaret picked her way through the muck and inspected the box more closely. It was wood, definitely, but such a vivid shade of blue, and with such unusual symbols on the door, opposite the sign that read "_Police Telephone FREE for use of PUBLIC. Advice & Assistance Obtainable Immediately. Officers & Cars Respond to All Calls. PULL TO OPEN._"

Cautiously, she grasped the cool handle and pulled. It was locked most stubbornly, and she let out a sigh before trying to peer through the window, but they too were blocked up. So much for something new.

Intending to lean glumly against the door for a few minutes before moving on, Margaret was not expecting the door to _push_ open and drop her to the floor with a shriek. She expected to hit her head on the opposite wall, dying a most embarrassing death, but instead was deposited onto a clean glass floor. "What...?"


	3. Chapter 3

A gasp of mixed wonder and fear wrenched from her throat as she looked around the enormous, cavernous room lying in wait before her, arching and whirling up to meet at a central column of glass and a round mechanism at its base, covered in devices she had never seen before in all her life. It was like falling into one of her dreams, but a thousand times more magnificent than her insubstantial imagination could ever supply.

"Oh, hello there, and how did you get in?" came a cheery voice over Margaret's shoulder. She swung around to see a man in a tweed jacket and bow-tie grinning at her. She jumped back and pulled her father's pistol to aim. With eyes significantly wider than a moment before, the man held up his hands defensively, back pressed against the door to the strange, magical box. "Now, let's not get trigger-happy in the TARDIS! She doesn't like it."

"Who are you?" asked Margaret in favor of wondering what on earth this man was talking about. Then, because she couldn't quite help herself, she added, "What is this device? You called it a...a TARDIS?"

The man nodded, brown hair falling down into his eyes, and she wondered for the briefest moment why he hadn't combed it back before remembering that society had rather collapsed in the past four days. "That's right, a Type _40_ TARDIS, actually, but no need to get technical. I'm the Doctor. Now how did you get in?" he asked, scrutinizing her, almost sizing her up in a way that felt all at once unnerving and completely un-threatening.

Margaret couldn't help her helpless little shrug. "I fell in? I don't know, I leaned against the door and it opened! Why does the sign say: 'Pull to Open,' if the door opens by pushing on it? Someone could get hurt."

"Yes, tentacle monsters are taking over the world, the necessary technology to fight them is in here, but _you're_ worried about someone opening a door improperly," frowned the strange doctor. He didn't look like any doctor she'd ever seen before. He was quite...elastic. "Will you please put down your gun?"

Oh. She'd almost forgotten about it. Dropping it to her side, she kept a watchful eye on the doctor as he did a circuit around her and jumped up onto the center platform. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" asked the doctor over his shoulder, so Margaret watched. He pulled levers, spun dials, pressed buttons, and fiddled with something that looked like a straining spoon.

She blinked at him. "It looks like you've gone mad. Have I fallen underground?"

"Underground?"

"Yes, underground," she repeated, slightly annoyed now. "This Police Box or TARDIS or whatever you would like to call it, appears to be very small when looking from the outside."

The doctor spun on his heel and leaned against his strange device, bumping one last lever with his elbow, and smirked. "You fell in the door?"

"Yes."

"And you think we're underground?"

"_Yes_."

"Then how could the door be _behind_ you?"

Margaret turned and looked at the door, only slightly ajar, but wide enough for a small shaft of light to come though. She pulled it open (still slightly irked that the sign had been wrong) and peered out, quite plainly finding the outer parameters of the little box to be, well, little. And yet on the inside it was massive? "Is this some sort of illusion?" she shrewdly asked.

The strange doctor grinned. "Nope. It's bigger on the inside. Dimensionally transcendent, if you'd like."

It felt as though she had been slapped in the face of this man's giddiness. Why was he so cheerful when there were people outside dying? "Are you in league with the monster?" she asked next, hand tightening protectively around her gun.

"No!" The doctor threw up his hands again. "No, no, why would I be in league with that thing? All legs, no face? Nasty! Of course not! I like things that can dance a bit, y'know." He accentuated this with a wiggle of his legs. "Now," he continued, stepping entirely too far into Margaret's personal space, "this seems like it's a bit much for you to swallow all at once; perhaps you should run along home to your mum, eh?" He grinned again, but this time with deep lines around his eyes that made such a young face look very, very old.

Taking a deep breath, Margaret forced herself not to look bothered. "My mother is dead, taken by the beast, and my home is destroyed." The doctor's face fell, and he looked so very sad that she again was confused as to his true age. Surely a man so young should not seem so old?

A smile cracked through his frown for an instant, looking almost spasmodic in its brevity. "What's your name?" he asked then. Margaret swallowed carefully.

"Margaret Moss, si-"

"Margaret Moss? That's brilliant!" laughed the doctor suddenly, breaking out into an expression of childish glee. "You sound like a-! Ah, well, like a...a superhero."

"A what?"

"Er, never mind. Follow me, Maggie Moss." dismissed the doctor, grabbing a most unusual metal wand sort of device and walking out of his dimen-dimensially-something-transcendent box with his grin dissolved once again. Goodness, but he had mood-swings like a girl!

She had to skip a bit to catch up with his long stride, before matching his pace, taking the wide steps of a man. It felt comfortable in a very queer, masculine way. "My name is Margaret, not-"

"What's wrong with Maggie Moss? Maggie's brilliant!" the doctor very nearly pouted. "Not to mention, it's faster and easier to say, so if the need arises I can shout 'Maggie, there's a tentacle coming for you!' one-point-seven seconds more quickly than if I were saying 'Margaret.' That one-point-seven could save your life." He clapped his hands and took on a businesslike air. "Now, there are a few rules if you're going to help me, Maggie. Rule one: don't wander off. Rule two: don't ask questions if you think you can get the answer yourself. Rule three-" He stopped and took her shoulders in his hands. "When I say 'run,' you _run_, do you hear me?"

It was very trying to breathe properly with a strange man so very near and speaking so gravely. "I don't even know your name," she protested, shrugging away from him.

A hint of a smirk returned to his lips. "I told you, I'm the Doctor."

"That's your name? Just _Doctor?_ You had very unusual parents. Beg pardon," she added hastily, but the Doctor was chuckling. "And who says I'm going to help you?"

The stubborn smirk widened confidently. "Haven't you ever dreamed of flight, Maggie?" he asked. "Or of anything exciting at all?"

Her words. Those had been her _exact words_ to John Thomas four days ago, and the Doctor was echoing them back at her as though they'd been his idea. She wondered if that meant something important.

"Of course I have," she replied softly, and then they were off to fight a monster.


	4. Chapter 4

It took three days, fourteen leftover police constables with some remaining sense of propriety, fourteen bottles of champagne, pea soup, curry powder, five bags of salt, a riding crop, and - absurdly - a plate of custard dreams, but by God, the Doctor was good for his word. Margaret still could not believe her eyes hours after the fact. She'd been taken by the beast after the second day, when she'd finally stopped trying to stop him calling her Maggie and had even managed to make him think she was clever.

"This goo, what is this goo?" he'd burst out after their afternoon plans were ruined by trying to navigate through the mess. To Margaret's disgust, he'd knelt down, put his fingers in the stuff, and licked his hand. "This goo's from the monster."

Margaret blinked at him, feeling very slow. "I thought we already knew that."

"We did, but something's different!" insisted the Doctor, ruffling his own hair. "There's something missing, something wrong! What is it?"

Seeing him so aggravated, Margaret looked around herself. "Is it because it moves of its own accord?" she asked. The aggravated eyes of her new companion suddenly became rapt. "Well, if it is secretions of this...tentacle-monster...then how is its secretion almost sentient? It consumes that which it touches, but it is not acidic, judging by the fact that you're alright from touching it. Perhaps it's only lethal in large quantities?"

"That's..." The Doctor nodded to himself. "That's actually quite brilliant, Maggie! Well, brilliant for a girl of your education level and the scientific state of your time period. So, yes, I think the word is brilliant, and - look out!"

She spun on her heel just in time to feel one of the tentacles wrap around her waist and let out a shriek. So much for her name being shorter saving her life. The Doctor grasped her hands and tried to pull her out of the monster's reach, but it was no use. It had her, it was over, she was going to die.

_iI'll go fighting, then/i,_ she concluded, and wrangled her father's pistol from her boot. There was time enough for a few shots, but when one was in the air it made it difficult to aim, and then came the water. She'd barely had enough time to take a breath before she was sucked under, faint echoes of the Doctor shouting still ringing in her ears.

After the water was open air, and an enormous underground cavern, much like the one her imagination had supplied for the inside of the TARDIS. The beast released her onto a rough-hewn stone floor, from where then she was quite unable to move for reasons unbeknownst to her. She tried to think, to remember how long it had roughly taken between the victims being taken and resurfacing, gauging how much time she had left.

If she was very careful, she could look out of the corner of her eyes and see a little girl lying nearly ten feet away, just as helpless. Her heart clenched.

But then the Doctor had arrived, just as the beast was closing in on her, with his band of Irregulars at his side like a general's troops. They poured the salt over the monster and it writhed, scooping up enormous amounts of its own secretions to sooth the dry patches in its skin. Once it had scraped the stuff off of her, Maggie had felt weak but capable of moving, and yet the Doctor still picked her up like a child and ran with her to a safe space in the cavern.

"Are you alright?" he asked breathlessly, pressing cold fingers to her face, her black hair, her shoulders, everywhere in search of non-present injuries. His eyes were shadowed with fear, and she had to grip his wrist to ensure him that she was still alive.

"Doctor, I'm fine," she assured him, though her voice was shaky; she had no idea how long she'd been paralyzed before he'd come to her aid.

Breathing a huge sigh of relief, the Doctor leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Good, that's...that's good, Maggie. Now, eat this and you'll be right as rain." He pulled a custard cream from his pocket, though it was liberally covered in pea soup, curry powder, and what looked like coal dust.

"Perhaps it's because you claim to be from another world," she began lightly, and the Doctor rolled his eyes at the word "claim" - if he couldn't prove it she would not believe it, "but this is not how we typically take our custard creams."

On the word icreams/i he shoved the thing into her mouth and held her jaw until she swallowed a bit of it, choking and eyes watering from the foul, spicy taste. "That was revolting."

He grinned, not looking at all ashamed. "But you feel better, don't you?"

And, blast it all, he was right. Certainly there was a horrible taste in her mouth that set her stomach on edge, but she was no longer quite so tired, and much of the strength had returned to her muscles. Maggie reluctantly nodded; the Doctor beamed. She opened her mouth to ask how he knew it would work, but stoppered herself when the constables started to pass, each holding a large petrol can in one hand and a garden hose topped with a kitchen strainer in the other, approaching the monster.

"What is that?"

Humming inquiringly, the Doctor followed Maggie's eyes to the constabulary. "Oh! They're going to gas out the monster with a rather clever mixture of pea soup, curry powder, champagne, and more salt. Speaking of!" He hauled her to her feet, gripped her hand, and pulled her along behind him toward one of the sewer's maintenance ports. He used his unusual buzzing metal wand to loosen the bolts and pull her blinking into the morning sun. Nearly all of the "goo" had been scraped away by the monster, and survivors were peeking their heads out of windows to see what was happening.

All at once, the constabulary came spilling out of the sewers, dragging long fuses behind them, and lit the ends. "Run!"

Again the Doctor took her by the hand and pulled her away, toward his machine that she hadn't seen since the day she'd met the unusual man. "Inside, quickly," he coaxed, opening the door for her and locking it firmly behind them. He dashed up to the center console while Maggie had to take another moment to adjust herself to the alien surroundings, pulling a hanging...well, she didn't know what it was, really - toward him and turning a knob on it. Then, like some sort of window in the wrong place, she could see everything going on outside!

"What is that?" she asked, hating how vacant she sounded as she drifted toward the device.

The Doctor barely glanced over his shoulder at her before turning his attention back to his strange window. "It's a monitor," he explained, "it monitors things."

"But how does it work?"

He grinned and tapped a long finger against the tip of her nose; she squirmed away. "It'd be easier just to teach you how to operate it, eh? You turn these to what angle you want to see - have angles been done yet? I do lose track of discoveries in mathematics - and it'll show you. See?" He turned the knob slowly, and the picture - the imoving/i picture - rotated to show the whole area surrounding the TARDIS. Maggie could hardly breathe with how enraptured she was.

"You must teach me how to use this device!" she practically shouted, and the Doctor laughed.

"In a bit. First, we're going to watch our monster go back to his planet. I've sent him a message; I'm sure he'll heed it."

Banishing the dozens of questions dancing through her mind - how could he send the monster a message? When had he done it? How did he know what could be used to mobilize those who had been paralyzed? - Maggie turned her attention to the monitor and watched the air fill with an otherworldly blue light. The tentacles rose out of their hiding places, but no longer looking predatory. Instead, they looked almost as though they were reaching. Then, with a blinding flash of the blue light that made MAggie turn her head away, they were gone.

All was silent. She took a breath. "Is that it?" she asked, almost feeling a bit disappointed in the anticlimax. "It's just gone?"

"It's just gone," the Doctor nodded. Seeing the look of mixed relief and disappointment on her face, he smiled and patted her shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll have plenty of chances to see more."

She shot him an inquiring look. He shifted from foot-to-foot. "Well, that is, I mean...do you want to see some more?"

"More?"

"Planets, aliens, stars, those sorts of things?" supplemented the Doctor. "It won't always be this dangerous, and it won't always be this safe, but I can tell you that it iwill/i change your life, Maggie Moss. Do you want to come with me?"

Looking carefully into his face, Maggie saw a maelstrom of different emotions there: expectation, worry, doubt, and the barest glimmer of hope. She wondered if she really did want to embark on such a journey as the one he suggested. Her life would not be one of luxury or relaxation any longer, but after the past week, would she want to go back to the life she'd led? Would she ever stop yearning for the same thrill of adventure, the dream of flight?

Just as the Doctor's face began to fall, she conceded. "Yes. Yes, I'll go with you." Before she could see his reaction there were long skinny arms around her, pinning her own arms to her side. "Doctor! This is hardly decent!" she laughed, not really minding at all.

"Oh, let 'em talk!" replied the Doctor before releasing her and pressing a kiss to her forehead, then cringing when they both realized she was still coated in muck. "Perhaps you'd fancy a bath?"

Maggie wrinkled her nose at him, amused. "Is my smell so offensive?"

"It's not your smell," the Doctor assured her, though didn't bother to say it wasn't offensive. "I'll show you to your rooms until the TARDIS starts telling you herself; right now you're still too new. Old girl's getting shy after last time." He gave one of the walls a pat; Maggie was suddenly flooded with fatigue and could not bring herself to wonder why he was speaking of his machine like another living being. The only thought that drove her feet forward was that of a hot bath and soft bed, even as the Doctor helped her navigate through seemingly endless corridors.

Though he was silent, Maggie had the odd feeling that the Doctor had no clue of where he was going as they traversed the dimensionally-transcendent ship, but finally came to a stop at a door. "Here we a-!" he froze as he opened the door, and held out a hand to keep Maggie from entering as though it were hallowed ground. She peered in, curious, and saw a very barren-looking room. There was no paper on the walls, but they were a pleasing shade of blue, and there were photographs - icolored/i photographs - hung up here and there beside the bunked beds, which were much nicer than any she'd heard of before in an army barracks.

"Why do you do this to me?" murmured the Doctor to the air. "They're gone. They aren't coming back. Take me to Maggie's room. Now."

The door closed with a snap and Maggie thought she heard a derisive sort of sniff, only it was more like she imagined it than heard it. The Doctor led her on, and opened the door to a much more comfortable-looking room with a large bed and pleasantly-papered walls in various shades of light green. There was a gleaming and very sleek-looking washroom attached, and another door beside it that led to what the Doctor called the wardrobe.

"Everything you need in way of clothes is in there. Anything you want that fits, have at it!" he told her before leaving her to her privacy.

She fell onto the plush bed that was unlike any she had ever felt before, and slept for ten hours straight, forgetting the bath altogether. She didn't even think of what the Doctor meant by "anything" in the wardrobe. She dreamed of flight.


	5. Chapter 5

When Maggie awoke, she kept her eyes closed for at least five minutes, try to let herself down easily by telling herself again and again, "It wasn't real. None of it was real. You've been ill. It was all a fever dream, and you're about to wake up in a hospital."

She gasped and opened her eyes at the sound of laughter above her. "You have very unusual dreams, Maggie," the Doctor chuckled, leaning over her. Shooting upright like a bolt, Maggie pulled the blankets around herself and scowled.

"Doctor!" she said in as admonishing a tone she could muster, channeling her mother all the way. "Now, you grabbing me like a mad man yesterday was bad enough - you being in my room while I'm asleep is simply iun/iacceptable!"

The Doctor looked surprised, like he wasn't accustomed to being scolded, but immediately backed away. "Alright, alright, but it's not like you aren't properly dressed or anything! I was just fetching you for breakfast; I made fish fingers!"

Blinking and loosening her hold on her blanket, Maggie scratched her head. "Fish fingers?" Did fish even ihave/i fingers?

There was a petulant hum in the back of her head, almost one of agreement, if an imagined sound could be agreeable. Maggie shook her head and began to crawl out of bed. "Alright, well, I'm having a bath, so shoo!" She ushered the Doctor from the room and locked the door firmly behind him before venturing into the enormous bath.

An hour later, the Doctor was knocking on her bedroom door. "Maggie, did you drown in there?" he called through the door, not sounding worried in the least, which probably should have bothered Maggie more if she weren't so enraptured by the wardrobe. It was enormous, bigger even than the control room, and filled from top to bottom with clothes. Ensconced safely in a long white dressing gown, she opened the door a crack and gaped at the strange man.

"Doctor, where are the ladies' clothes?" she asked, not daring to believe her eyes. "I don't see any dresses."

The Doctor quirked an eyebrow. "Do you iwant/i a dress?" he challenged, shouldering past her into the room and laughing when she scowled. "Oh, calm down, you're covered and I'm not interested; come along!"

She let out a huff and followed him into the depths of the wardrobe. "Even so, it's not appropriate for a man to be in a lady's bedroom when she isn't decent! Or in her bedroom at all, to be honest!" she protested.

There was suddenly a tall gangly bow-tied man standing nearly chest-to-chest with her, looking painfully amused. "Well, it's a good thing I'm not man, then, aren't I?" he grinned. Before she could ponder that, he continued. "Now stop your fussing and we'll find you something to wear. How about this?"

He held aloft a black shirt, brown jacket, and trousers of an unusual blue material she'd never seen before. "Trousers?" she asked as though he were suggesting she run through the streets in her birthday suit.

"They're called jeans," supplied the Doctor with the air of a twelve-year-old professor. "Or denims, depending on where you are. Very durable, very comfortable, and very stylish, eh?"

"But they're itrousers,/i" she insisted again, not daring to believe that this was acceptable.

There was a twinkle in the Doctor's eyes that suggested he was laughing at her. "Yes, and girls are allowed to wear them, if they so choose," he said patiently. "Give the human race enough time, and gender won't matter. Isn't that something?"

"What about corsets?" asked Maggie suspiciously.

The Doctor bounced on the balls of his feet. "Only for fashion purposes, and much less constricting. The whale-bones are a bit degenerative to the ribcage." He poked her in the side to emphasize his point.

Yes, she'd noticed that. She tentatively took the ijeans/i and ran a hand over the coarse-and-yet-soft material. "Jeans," she said experimentally, letting the word roll around her mouth for a moment.

"Or denims!"

Raising her eyes to his, Maggie smiled. "I can ireally/i wear this?" she asked, feeling something foreign but not unpleasant bubbling in her stomach.

Rolling his eyes slightly, the Doctor walked to another rack of hanging clothes and pulled out what looked like two scraps of spare aubergine material. "Maggie, this is a bathing suit for girls in the year 1970. You could go out in ithis/i and wouldn't be looked at twice, unless of course someone thought you were pretty, and in which case probably would look several times," he explained.

"But I'd be naked!"

"No one says you ihave to/i wear it if you don't want to!"

Trying to hide just how appalled she was by the tiny clothes, Maggie snatched a few random garments from the racks and silently pointed the Doctor out so she could change.

"Undergarments are over there."

"iDoctor!/i"

It was another hour and a half before Maggie was dressed, simply because there were so very many choices to look at. She kept the ijeans/i hugged to her chest as though they would fly away if she released them and wandered the several floors of the wardrobe room, before finally just diving in and taking the first thing to catch her eye. Not quite willing to let go of everything to which she had been accustomed, she found a very pretty white blouse with blue flowers embroidered on. It took her a full ten minutes to properly operate the simplest-looking of the brassieres she found, unused to such tiny hooks, and took a few moments to be appalled by the size of the underpants before remembering that no one saw them anyway, and if they were any bigger they'd be noticeable under her ijeans/i. She briefly ogled a beige jacket with a celery stalk attached to the lapel before finding a ladies'-sized one in tweed, rather like the Doctor's.

Giggling almost madly to herself, Maggie donned the tweed and then found a blue silk bow tie hanging on a hat rack; she was laughing so much she could hardly tie the thing, but at last managed it with tears of mirth in her eyes.

Last were the shoes, and there were quite so many that she didn't quite know how one girl could manage them all, and took a pair of shining brown leather shoes, forgetting about stockings until the last moment. Those were just downright ridiculous, and she took the least offensive-looking ones, which were a blinding shade of green.

Successfully dressed, Maggie practically skipped out of the wardrobe room into the corridor. The Doctor had slumped onto the floor to wait, and broke into a grin so wide upon seeing her that she worried he might split his lip. "A bow tie?" he asked, nearly vibrating with enthusiasm. "That's so icool,/i Maggie!" He embraced her again, and she allowed it in her own high spirits, beginning to realize that it was more common for the culture from which the Doctor came.

Releasing her with a gleeful laugh, the Doctor clapped his hands. "Oh, Maggie Moss, have I got a universe to show you," he promised grandly, and Maggie felt excitement swell in her stomach. "First though, breakfast! Always need a good cuppa before an adventure, I say!" They traversed the corridors to the most dangerously exciting kitchen Maggie had ever seen before, where the Doctor made tea and toast because the fish fingers had gone cold.

"Now, when shall we go first?" he pondered, sucking idly on his teaspoon. "There's the sixties, sixties are always fun - well, maybe not sixty-nine, best avoid another moon-landing fiasco - or we could do the eighties, the nineties, the two-thousands - love the two-thousands, some of my best companions came from there -"

"iTwo-thousands?/i" blurted Maggie through a mouthful of toast, eyes boggling. "You don't possibly mean the iyear/i two thousand?"

"I do, indeed."

She shook her head, breathless with disbelief, and the Doctor beamed.

"Would you like me to sho-?"

Already she was on her feet, fists clenched excitedly at her sides, biting her lip as she flushed with anticipation. "Oh, yes, I want to see everything!" she gushed. "I want to see new worlds, and stars, and iAmerica!/i Oh, could we go to New York, iplease,/i Doctor?"

He laughed and got to his feet as well, allowing Maggie to abandon her toast for the enchantments of the control room once again.

"I still don't understand how this works, but I am so very keen to learn," she said, watching closely as he began to work the controls again. He pointed her towards buttons and dials, showing her how to operate them.

Soon the rotors began moving in the glass column, rising and falling with all the grace of a bird in flight, then the engines roared to life, and then everything went topsy-turvy and Maggie screamed with equal terror and incandescent delight. Her heart clenched in her chest as she wondered if perhaps things were going wrong, but then saw the Doctor's face, his love for that strange machine, his joy for flight, and was comforted even as the TARDIS flung them about.

Then, just as quick as anything, it stopped. Maggie relinquished her hold on the rail surrounding the console and stood on shaking legs, laughing weakly as the Doctor flipped his final switch. "Where are we?" she asked eagerly.

"We'll have to see, won't we?" the Doctor smirked before becoming serious for a moment. "Now, you keep hold of my hand, alright? And if it's too much, just say so and we'll stop for a rest; I don't want you going into culture-shock."

Culture-shock? Maggie had never even heard of it before, but she nodded agreeably and ignored the offered hand in favor of his elbow. The tweed was comfortably scratchy against her fingers, and a good distraction against her sudden nerves. There was nothing to be afraid of, except perhaps everything.

The Doctor pulled the doors open, and Maggie sucked in a shocked breath.

Outside was a bustling metropolis, somewhat similar to London and yet completely different in the same moment. She had seen automobiles before, certainly enough, but never so many at once and never any quite so alien-looking. They almost resembled insects, or fish, with their sleek shining bodies and gleaming glass. There were people ieverywhere/i, doing ieverything/i and yet nothing at the exact same time. Many of them had small devices seemingly attached to their hands or ears or pockets, some of them flashing, some of them emitting guttural tinny music, some of them were being talked into like a telephone without a wire. The clothes themselves were an enigma of variety, softened only by the great diversity of the Doctor's wardrobe. Hair, also, was a mystery. Some had their hair short, some had no hair, some had hair that fell gracefully - or gracelessly - down their backs, some had fringe, some had braids, some had buns and some had tightly-twisted curls. Bicycles, trams, trains, things that iflew/i through the air like motionless metal birds, constant noise, ringing, sirens, wails of children, the clap of heeled shoes on pavement, the loud laughter of a few teenagers, one girl shouting with glee and no one looking twice...

"Take a breath, Maggie," the Doctor gently reminded her. She released the air held fast in her lungs and took in more, her hand sliding down the Doctor's arm to take hold of his hand, which squeezed comfortingly around hers. "Is it too much?"

Maggie took a breath, and then another, and then another, and every time it was a bit easier, and every time her wonderment grew. "No. No, it's not too much at all. In fact, it's not inearly/i enough." And still, there in the door she stood, gripping the Doctor's hand like she used to hold her mother's, as if stepping through the door of the TARDIS would be to step over the edge of a precipice, right into the sea.

"On three, then?" asked the Doctor, sensing her trepidation. She nodded.

"One..."

"Two..."

"Three."

They stepped out into a new world.

"Welcome to Seattle, 2011."


	6. Chapter 6

Seattle. Maggie could hardly believe her eyes. It was breathtaking, utterly breathtaking. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to an enormous protuberance thrusting almost rebelliously into the sky.

The Doctor squinted at it. "They call it a Space Needle, but it's not nearly high enough to reach anything interesting. Maybe a bird, on occasion." He shrugged as though the confines of space and time were no great matter, and Maggie supposed that to him they weren't.

"Will we see the stars?" she asked, feeling meek as they started talking down the first street they saw, the Doctor snapping his fingers to close the TARDIS behind them like a proper illusionist.

He steered them deftly through the masses of people in constant motion, weaving and diving when the timing was appropriate, and scoffed. "Oh, Maggie, will we ever," he cryptically replied. "Now, why don't we start with something small, like music?" Without waiting for a reply, he pulled her off down a side-street and into what looked to be a pub.

"Do you have a ticket?" asked a bored-looking boy with a metal bar through his lip and oddly-messy black hair. At least Maggie thought they were a boy until she looked closer and gasped with realization. The _girl_ narrowed her eyes at Maggie, then took in hers and the Doctor's matching clothes with a sigh.

Without pausing, the Doctor pulled a small leather fold from his pocket and held it out to the girl. "This should do?" he assumed, and the girl let them pass by. The Doctor showed her the paper inside of the leather fold.

"A blank paper?"

"Precise-what, no!" the Doctor pouted, looking from her to the paper rapidly before tucking it back into his pocket with a sigh. "That's what I get for getting a companion with too much imagination, I suppose. It's slightly-psychic paper. Shows people whatever I want them to see. They think I'm a reporter. Now come on, we've got some popular culture to catch you up on!"

The Doctor called it a concert, though Maggie had never known one without seats or in a proper theatre. There were people of all ages, races, livelihoods, and gender (though the majority seemed to be very rough-hewn women) crammed into the pub, staring rapt at the stage where a jumble of equipment was being set up. "Those are microphones," the Doctor explained enthusiastically, "they amplify the voice and instruments. And those over there are speakers. Sound goes into the microphones and out the speakers. Heh, shape of the microphone reminds me of a time on Perseis V, my friend Jack, see, he -"

"Shh!" a nearby woman hissed, pressing a finger to her lips as another woman, pretty and small with curly brunette hair, walked onto the stage to eruptive cheers. Being shushed seemed a bit unnecessary in the din, but Maggie didn't want to start a confrontation, especially not now that things were getting interesting.

Clearing her throat, the performer forwent the voice-amplifiers and stepped right out onto the lip of the stage to more applause from her audience. It seemed almost indecent, the amount of shrieking the people were doing, but the woman didn't mind as she stomped her foot and began to strum her guitar and sing.

"_I left home a long long time ago_  
><em>In a tin can for the road<em>  
><em>With a suitcase and some songs<em>

_I went miles through the night-time_  
><em>Making tracks<em>  
><em>Ain't no time for looking back to the place where I belong<em>

_How these days grow long, now I'm on my way back home_  
><em>It's been hard to be away<em>  
><em>How I miss you and I just wanna kiss you<em>  
><em>And I'm gonna love you 'til my dying day<em>

_How these days grow long._"

The rest of the number passed in a blur as Maggie gripped the Doctor's arm like a lifeline. This was music? This cacophony of noise and tight-pressed bodies and the smell of sweat was what people sought out for entertainment in the future?

The Doctor patted her hand. "Give it time; you'll get used to it," he murmured in her ear, and so she waited.

Then the most glorious thing happened.

The next song wasn't to her taste either, but after that two men, identical twins, entered the stage to roaring applause and took the center microphone for their own. The woman left the stage, grinning nervously before vanishing. The pair exchanged a glance, and one of them began to play before they opened their mouths and sang in perfect harmony.

"_Hello darkness, my old friend..."_

The room filled with so many screams and claps brought on by the one line of song that Maggie flinched, wondering for a moment if something horrible had happened in the back of the pub, but the Doctor pulled her to face front again. The perfect synchronization of the men's voices was haunting, seeping into not Maggie's ears but her every pore, filling her with the unwanted desire to jump, run, scream, do anything but stand stationary and listen. It was so calm, and yet her heart was pounding in her ears. Their voices were beautiful, but the words - the _words!_ - were so bleak and so forlorn that she fought not to weep. Her hands shook at her sides, tears brimmed but didn't spill, and she swayed in time with the ghostly tune.

When the song came to an end, both only seconds and lifetimes later, she erupted into applause and cheers along with the rest of the crowd. She didn't want just to scream, however, and when the shouting died down she blurted out, "That was _beautiful_!"

The twins looked directly at her, grinning from ear to ear, and she blushed profusely to the amusement of everyone else in the pub.

"I think that was the creepiest, most beautiful thing that poor girl's ever heard," the woman said teasingly into the microphone, prompting more laughter at Maggie's dispense. But it was not entirely unkind laughter. "Where you from, anyway?"

She gaped helplessly from the woman to the Doctor before stammering a reply. "L-London!"

For some unknowable reason that was cause for applause, even from the performer herself. Maggie very badly wanted to hide her face, but the Doctor looked so very pleased with her that she couldn't bear disappointing him with her bashfulness.

They left soon after that nevertheless, the Doctor claiming that he didn't like to draw attention to himself, "Though you did look so very cute when she started talking to you."

Maggie fought the urge to grumble at him and kicked a stone instead. "Can we hear more music? Something different?"

Beaming, the Doctor pulls her by the crook of the elbow. "Why d'you think I picked _this_ city? If the streets are the arteries, then music is the blood!" They were off down the street, a breeze drawing blood to their faces as the gentlest rain began to fall, more a mist than anything else.

They dove next into a small theatre, the Doctor using his alien paper to get in there as well, and quickly found seats near the front, though everyone else was standing. Another woman, this one at a piano, was beaming out at the crowd from the stage. The beat of the music was steady and sharp, stronger than a heartbeat and braver than a soldier, and much more pronounced than the last. People all around were moving about to the rhythm of the song in what Maggie supposed was meant to be dance. It just looked rather silly, to be honest, and yet she felt compelled to do the same.

"_Maybe is a vicious little word that can slay me_  
><em>Keep me when I'm hurting and make me,<em>  
><em>Hang from your hands<em>

_Well, no more,_  
><em>I won't beg to buy a shot at your back door<em>  
><em>If I make it at the thought of you, what for?<em>  
><em>It's not me anymore.<em>"

As she continued to stand stationary in the middle of the lurching crowd, she felt the Doctor's eyes trained on her. Before she could turn fully and ask what he found so remarkable, the man had grasped her hands and spun her gracelessly around. She laughed outright, trying and failing to mimic the Doctor's obscure movements that were extraneous even for a crowd such as this one.

The Doctor spun her again, and she came face-to-face with a girl of her age, laughing in a friendly manner at them. "You guys look so cute in your matching clothes!" she shouted over the thrum of the music. "Do you wanna come over here with us? We're doing the dance from the music video!"

"The what?"

Not seeming to hear, the girl grasped Maggie's hand - making her heart leap into her throat at the unexpected contact - and began pulling her through the masses of bodies to the other end of the row. Maggie reached back and grasped the Doctor by the bow-tie to make sure they didn't get separated. The small group waiting at the other end cheered when they joined in, wrapped one arm around their waists in a choreographed fashion, and Maggie and the Doctor scrambled to keep up.

"_And I'm not the girl that I intend to be,_  
><em>I dare you darling, just you wait and see<em>  
><em>But this time not for you but just for me,<em>  
><em>And I say:<em>"

The Doctor took her hands again, and they danced independently from the group. Never had Maggie felt so independent, so liberated, in all her life.

"_Ooh, how'm I gonna get over you?_  
><em>I'll be alright, just not tonight<em>  
><em>Someday, oh I wish you'd want me to stay<em>  
><em>I'll be alright, just not tonight,<em>  
><em>Someday...<em>"

Again, they did not stay for much longer than a few songs, feeling overwhelmed by so many people being crammed into one building. The rest of the night was passed in running about the city in search of music. Then they rode up to the top of what the Doctor said was called the Space Needle and had breakfast under the guise of something titled a health inspector, and his assistant.

"Where are we going next?" asked Maggie when they'd set off back toward the TARDIS, the thrum of a million songs echoing in her veins. They passed at least three musicians on the street itself, one singing in a voice so hollow and rough that Maggie had to stop and listen as though under a spell. He screamed his pain, raindrops shining in his copper-colored curls as he abused the instrument in his hands.

"_If I ventured in the slipstream_  
><em>Between the viaducts of your dreams<em>  
><em>Where immobile steel rims crack<em>  
><em>And the ditch in the back roads stop<em>

_Could you find me_  
><em>Would you kiss-a my eyes<em>  
><em>Lay me down<em>  
><em>In silence easy<em>  
><em>To be born again<em>  
><em>To be born again<em>

_THERE YOU GO!_"

She jumped at the whirlwind of emotion the man set off, and only resisted a little bit when the Doctor pulled her to carry on. "We've been out all night, you should get some sleep before we head out again," he explained, but Maggie wasn't tired in the least. She didn't think she could sleep if she tried, so alive was her head with the sounds of music echoing all through her body.

Nevertheless, she did as she was told and crawled into bed when they arrived back at the TARDIS, staring up at the ceiling for what felt like hours as melodies chased one another through her head. She couldn't escape from this glorious new feeling, this sensation of falling into something and never wanting to come back up. The technology was astounding, the liberation of all genders and races was exhilarating, but the music, the music, the _music!_ It would never leave her, not until the day she died.


End file.
